[a] The Republic was established by the Partisan resistance movement and its administrative center was in the town of Užice.

The Republic of Užice comprised a large portion of western part of the occupied territory and had a population of more than 300,000[3] (according to another source, nearly one million[4]).

The government was made of "people's councils" (odbori), and the partisans opened schools and published a newspaper, Borba (meaning "Struggle").

They even managed to run a postal system and around 145 km of railway and operated an ammunition factory from the vaults beneath the bank in Užice.

At the beginning of December 1941[10] the partisans moved from Serbia to Bosnia (nominally part of the NDH) and joined their comrades who had already left Montenegro.